The Tapestry of Jewels
by Kang Xiu
Summary: Remember, the revolution is a sacrifice, the barricade an altar, and Patria the Goddess. Please, when they cut your throat, try not to thrash too much. The Goddess' robes must not be stained." Complete
1. Bridges

Girald stared at the man singing, sitting on the bridge over the Seine, one arm draped about a stone outcropping for anchor, and the other hand neatly in his lap. His voice was clear, and strange, somehow, and the words wove in a strange way, braiding themselves together with hints of silk. His voice was clear, but not commanding, like falling pear blossoms caught by the wind. Girald left Jehan and Phillipe and moved to his side, letting that wind throw back his golden hair.  
  
The man turned to look at him. "Bonjour."  
  
"Who are you?" He won himself a stare, but the man answered.   
  
"I'm Feuilly, as we see last names are the only thing of any importance in the world. First names are identity to tie us to the families that gave them. I wonder why this should be. Our last names are the ones that truly belong to our fathers. Shall I be Durand, and take on my mother's surname? Je suis Durand? Or am I Feuilly? Or maybe just Damien. The first name is anonymous. Damien-- Nothing. Two proper names that make unknown. So who am I to you, m'sieur?"  
  
"Not m'sieur. If you know so much about equality, you should know that m'sieur, being a title, is no good. You're Feuilly, Feuilly. What do you do?"  
  
Feuilly laughed. "I make fans. I string wood together with silk. A worthy occupation. And you?"  
  
"I --" Girald paused. "I am an actor..."  
  
"I thought you were studying law?" said Phillipe from behind him, frowning a little. Jehan did not speak, watching.  
  
"Oh, Combeferre!"  
  
Girald laughed, a laugh that earned him more stares, the laugh of a man who is not sane. Jehan stepped forward to steady him, a hand at his waist, and one on his shoulder, as he continued to laugh, choking a little on it. It was Feuilly's turn to watch, leaning a little against the outcropping, forehead creasing in thought. He pushed back a thin sheet of black hair that fell past his ears and brushed his cheekbones, and rested long, worn fingers on the stone, drew them in to his palms, and dropped his knuckles to it. His eyes darted to Phillipe.  
  
"What is his name?"  
  
"Enjolras..."  
  
"And what is his medical condition?"  
  
Phillipe gave him a look. "He has none. This man... he is going to change the world. He has dreamed of freeing France since he was very young. Under him, we are going to create la Republique."  
  
Feuilly smiled. "Of course you are."  
  
Phillipe stood straighter, drawing himself up. "We are. Will you join us?"  
  
Feuilly looked at him quizzically, tilting his head so that his hair fell past his face again, shielding his dark eyes. He ignored the presence of Girald, who had ceased to laugh, and Jehan, who was speaking softly to him with comforting voice, and simply kept his gaze on Phillipe, meeting his eyes, seeming to consider.  
  
"I... I think I will..." He spoke slowly, though not apprehensively. Then he cracked a cynical grin at Phillipe. "But may I sing inspirational themes of the year to begin meetings?"  
  
"Certainly not." Girald answered the mocking question.  
  
"I thought not. Count me a part, anyway."  
  
"We will." Girald could picture Feuilly with three gunshots in his chest, bleeding heavily, the air thick with the scent of corrosion, and he was pleased to welcome his newest Ami. 


	2. Candles

Girald looked around the room slowly, not seeming to truly take anything in, just looking for the sake of looking. He stood erect, his head held high, golden curls dripping about his face, and his back was straight. And if he couldn't see the walls and floor and single window, he certainly couldn't see the homely, nondescript young man sitting at the table behind him, drinking absinthe. The boy was watching him, however, avidly, clouded grey eyes fixed with interest upon his hair, following his every movement.   
  
At last, Girald seemed to feel the eyes, and turned. His face bore an expression of curiosity, fine eyebrows raised, and he moved back to the young man's table, sinking into a chair. His companion smiled, not unlike Feuilly had; sarcastically.  
  
"Bonjour."  
  
"Everyone greets me that way. It's not a good day at all."  
  
"'Greets' you? They could be spiting you. --How is it not a good day? You've found le cafe Musain. You're a revolutionary, are you not? Isn't it perfect? Isn't it a good place, with this back room, closed in as it is; one can't notice the door immediately. It's as good a place as any to plot and plan and choose the exact strategic way to kill young, foolish men."  
  
Girald stiffened. "I - what is your name?"  
  
"Andre."  
  
"Your last name. In la Republique, we use surnames."  
  
Andre snorted. "Grantaire, then."  
  
Encouraged, Girald began. "I'm a revolutionary, yes. I -"  
  
"Wait - you needed my name before you could properly argue at me, is that right? Good God."  
  
Girald felt himself glaring slightly in exasperation, and tossed his head a little to throw back the curls straying in front of his eyes. "I'm not arguing with you. You're... you're right. I do want to kill them. And this is a good place. It's a perfect place. How - how could you tell, though, what I was thinking?" Now he was curious again, earnest, leaning forward rather.  
  
Andre gave him a suddenly unsure grin. "Just could. You look the like the sort to kill... kill men..." His voice grew softer. "Do you intend to kill everyone who joins in your revolution?"  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"May *I* join?"  
  
Girald cocked his head, considering. Andre was impossible to imagine dead. For some reason, he was completely unable to picture him with any injury; he couldn't even see him with a bayonet slash to the throat. "No."  
  
"Oh, God. --Please?"  
  
He shook his head firmly. "No."  
  
Andre took his hand gently, lovingly, holding it almost reverently. "You must, please. It's all I ask."  
  
He tried to pull away, afraid of the strange, sad-eyed young man pleading to be killed. "No!"  
  
Andre's grip tightened. "Beautiful god, please allow me to make this sacrifice for you."  
  
Girald succeeded in freeing himself this time, and, as soon as his hand was his own again, struck Andre across the cheek, feeling unreasonable fury and fear in his chest. Andre sank back, cradling his face in both rough hands, a look of incredible pleasure on his countenance.  
  
"Ah well... I'll make do with this until I can convince you."  
  
Girald stood. "You're not part of my revolution. Don't expect it, for you'll never be." He turned to leave, shuddering with hate, resting his forehead for a moment on the door. "Don't ask again."  
  
Andre didn't answer, too drunk with the pain. And quite suddenly, Girald could imagine him drowning. He left with tears in his eyes. 


	3. Flowers

Girald sat curled on his bed, which had been pushed into the furthest corner of the room, against the wall on two sides. He was facing the rest of the room, arms wrapped tightly about his chest, head bowed, and eyes closed, his hair tied back so as not to fall over his face. He didn't look up as Jehan entered, shutting the door quietly, sitting beside him.  
  
"I saw your light on. Mon cher." Jehan stroked his cheek shortly. "What's wrong? You're not often sad."  
  
"I... have you met Courfeyrac's friend, Pontmercy? The one who is always dreaming?"  
  
"Oui, today. He is so young. But is that what has upset you?"  
  
Girald shook his head, opening his eyes at last, giving Jehan an anguished look. "He's different from you, and Courfeyrac, and Combeferre - he's different from all of them. It doesn't make any sense."  
  
He remembered meeting the boy, barely twenty, younger than himself. Marius had smiled at him, an innocent smile, full of joy and trust and almost devotion. It was a look he received from many men, sometimes women, but in Marius it frightened him; he didn't like it; and while it was easy to see Marius dead, Marius wasn't dead of a wound, but of an illness. It was that that repelled him from the boy: the vision of Courfeyrac's young friend feverish and sweating, eyes glassy, turning restlessly on white sheets. He did inot/i like Marius, and would rather not ever have to look at him again.  
  
"Hush." Jehan undid Girald's hair, and began trailing his fingers through it slowly. He couldn't know about Marius. His hands were gentle, and easing, and stroked the golden curls lovingly, tangling them a little, then brushing through again. "Have you slept since you saw him?"  
  
Reluctantly, Girald whispered, "Yes."  
  
"Then why do you worry so?" Jehan kissed his forehead. "It's all right. Yes, he is terribly young, and if he dies in the revolution, I will be among those who weep for him. But he may not die."  
  
"But -" He fell silent, wishing feverently that Marius Pontmercy did not exist. He did not share the secret of the murder of the revolution with even Jehan, and therefore couldn't explain things to him. He shuddered slightly.  
  
As if sensing he was not to understand what was wrong, Jehan looked sadly at him for a moment, then placed his hands on Girald's shoulders, pushing him down to the mattress, and smoothing his hair once more. "Will you sleep now, for me? You must be tired. It's two o'clock."  
  
Girald met his eyes, feeling suddenly rather lost. "I suppose I am..." He stretched himself full-length, resting his cheek on the pillow, with his arm beneath as a support. For a moment, there was silence.  
  
"All right." Jehan paused, tensing as if about to stand and leave, then sighed, knelt, and kissed Girald again, and began taking off his shoes. A moment later, he lay beside the other man, fully dressed, closing his eyes on the soft burn of unshed tears. "I'll sleep with you tonight. Bonne nuit," he added resolutely, relaxing a little.  
  
Girald watched him until they were both asleep, and the last thing he saw in his mind was Jehan holding a flag of vivid crimson, fingers knotted in the fabric so hard they tore and bled, a bullet wound in the centre of his heart, and a waterfall of dark red cascading down. That was what he liked best about Jehan. The poet always died the most nobly of any man Girald had ever looked at. 


	4. Ivoire et Rouge

Girald stood by the bridge over the Seine, at the same spot Feuilly had sat to sing a week earlier. The sinking sun shadowed him, settling itself along the curls in his golden hair. He stood still; perfectly, elegantly unmoved, as though he were a part of the place, as though - for the orange light had turned his skin to bronze - he were a statue decorating the bridge. His eyes were open, watching the sun as it slowly fell, transfixed.  
  
He wasn't aware of the girl until she was at his elbow, hands on the bridge wall and shoulders drawn up, leaning over, looking eagerly at the blaze of colour, and shattering his solitude. He didn't move, but let his gaze drift over her. She gave him a heavy impression of innocent, childish delight, which sprung from her smile and her small, slim fingers, curled on the stone. Women never died in his mind when he looked upon them, for women were weaker creatures than men, unworthy of valiant death. They simply existed.  
  
But after a moment, that blankness rippled, and he could see, vividly, the girl, still dressed in the pale, long-sleeved shift she wore now, with those same small fingers curled over her white-silk shoulder, and through them, crimson flowers blooming. He felt a longing, sharply, to look away, but couldn't, watching the blossoms grow and spread around her hands, coiling vines down her arms, dark red petals growing between the dark brown coils of her hair. At last he could no longer bear to see her, stained with blood-coloured flowers, and tore his eyes away, jerking his entire body with the movement.  
  
She startled, and turned to him.  
  
"M'sieur! I'm sorry, I didn't see you! I -"  
  
He could hear the choking of his voice as he asked, "Who are you?"'  
  
"Oh..." She smiled at him, trusting of this angelic stranger. "Cosette."  
  
"Cosette?" He swallowed hard, and managed, "Do you have... red flowers?"  
  
She looked at him in confusion. "Oui, roses, and red lilies..."  
  
"You should wear them in your hair."  
  
"But they'd die."  
  
"That's all right." He closed his eyes. "Why are you here?"  
  
She blushed a little, giving him another smile, guiltily. "I wanted to see the sunset, and from my garden... it's hard. So I climbed over the gate and came out."  
  
"You should have worn a different dress."  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's white. It will show in the moonlight." Suddenly he felt a twinge of protectiveness. "Anyone could see you. You might... Something might happen. I'll walk you home. The sunset is gone." He shot her a glance from beneath his lashes.  
  
She sighed. "You're right. Thank you, M'sieur."  
  
"Girald."  
  
"O- oh..."  
  
They made the walk in silence, she looking often at her tall, beautiful companion, and he appearing to stare straight ahead, though he quite as often eyed her, secretly, and thought of the red flowers, blooming, growing, living, consuming... He could hear her bare, pale feet patter the cobblestones, and she could hear his soft, even breathing.  
  
At the house, he turned away as she squeezed between the bars of the gate, allowing the moonlight to accent his cheekbones and shoulders, seeming not to notice how lovely he was. His lips moved slightly in a prayer or speech that would never be heard, and his fingertips settled on his heart. He turned back, dropping the hand, at her whisper.  
  
"Here. Take this."  
  
She held a red lily to him, her slender arm outstretched through the bars. He took it, cupping it in both hands, lips now parted in a strange sort of awe.  
  
"Merci..."  
  
She smiled once more and was gone. He stood at her gate for a time unmeasured, then began a slow and wandering walk to his apartment. From time to time, he looked up at the moon.  
  
[Epilogue]  
  
He tore the petals and stamens from the lily, and placed them in a small box, the size of Cosette's hands. He left it open for a few moments, regarding the crimson petals on the white lining, then gently set down the lid, and placed the box on the windowsill.  
  
He slept without dreams. 


	5. Cobblestones

Girald stood at his window for a moment, a hand on the box with the now-wilted lily petals, looking out at the streets below himself. At last he sighed, and stiffened his back, and turned to the door. Catching up the hairbrush from the bedside table, he dragged it through golden curls, wrenching it where it stuck in the tangles. Another moment later, and he touched the door, allowing his fingers the slide across the doorknob, falling into place to turn it, letting himself out into the hallway, down long stairs, out another door, which he did not spend so much time on, and into the streets, ducking his head from the pale sun. He wore no overcoat, and walked happily, hands hooked together behind his head, looking around himself with eyes that seemed too innocent and lovely to belong to anyone's idea of a revolutionary.  
  
His walk was carefree, easy, and he listened with joy to the soft sound of his boots on the cobblestones. It was early yet, and not so many folk had left their houses, and he was undisturbed in his peaceful saunter. His eyes strayed upwards to look straight into the morning sun, undisturbed by the glare, smiling amiably at it.  
  
It was so much better to be in Paris. Here, he was free from his father. His mad, frightening, hated father. How dare the old man insist that his son become a rebel? How dare he keep pounding those three damned words into Girald's mind? Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. As if Girald cared. He loathed everything and anything to do with the Republique; he almost couldn't bear the name. But he must have his revolution anyway; show his father what he'd done. Oh, yes, he'd go on and build the barricades his father dreamed of, strip the streets and the cafes, and have every last one of his friends - and himself - murdered for Republique his father so revered. That would show the man, teach him, what wrong he'd done. Girald would shout to the world that here was M. Enjolras, the dedicated Republican, who through his dreams and his hopes and his fanaticism had killed France's young people. They would die to spite his father. Lady Patria was a facade, and his father would learn that.  
  
Girald thought on that with satisfaction, still making his slow way along the streets of Paris, amused and pleased. People were such idiots. Almost the only human in the world worth talking to and knowing was Jehan; that was because they had grown up side-by-side, and the poet, while ignorant of the great sacrifice Girald would make on Patria's alter, understood the hurt that his golden-haired lover had gained from the never-ending commands to learn, to overthrow, to rally, to create France in a burst of glory. Yes, Jehan was a good person. A kind person. The man with the most beautiful death in the whole of the world, as Girald knew. No one would ever be able to match up to the fantasy and wonder of the crimson flag and the single bullet hole of Jean Prouvaire.  
  
Girald let his mind wander to the Amis, to each of them, each selected by the way they were consumed by death when he looked upon them. They were the seven men most worthy to prove the evil of his father's dreams. They were seven who would live forever as the boys who died at the hands of a vile old man's Republique. He smiled; an angelic, beautiful, unbearable smile of pleasure.  
  
He continued in his walk, warmth filling his body, feeling deep contentment as he wandered. Suddenly, he caught sight of a man walking towards him, coming down the thin street obliviously. The man was looking at the sky, much as he had when he had begun in the early morning light. It was an old man, dressed in threadbare clothes and holding a large book tightly, as though the book would fall away, and be lost forever when it fell, never again to be his.  
  
Girald watched him as he neared, and a vision began to fill his mind, a superb, glorious vision, of the old man laid upon a bed of moss. He was draped in a long white sheet of silk, and through the silk, five pinpricks of blood soaked, forming five points as though of a star. His eyes were open and he stared ahead, skin pale and colourless and dry, if one touched it. Girald was struck by the clearness and purity of the image, and rushed to the man, closing the already tiny gap between them.  
  
"M'sieur, m'sieur!" The younger man stared earnestly at the older, outstretching a hand to him. "You - you *die* so *beautifully*!" The words tripped out eagerly, half-without his meaning to speak them. "It's wonderful, it truly is!" Already blissful, and now elated, he embraced the man fiercely, laughing joyously, falling to his knees to retrieve the book as it slipped from its master's arms.  
  
M'sieur Mabeuf took it quickly, and looked at Girald sadly. He tilted his head to one side, contemplating. Then, without speaking, he passed the smiling angel and continued on, holding the book with more love.  
  
Girald looked after him for a few slow moments, then stood, and began to walk again. His smile was gone, replaced by an expression of thoughtfulness, and a trace of sorrow.  
  
"Au revoir. Perhaps..."  
  
//Perhaps I will see you again...// 


	6. Ghosts

Girald was kneeling, looking up in reverence at the young man standing above him. His eyes were darkened in awe, his entire body poised elegantly. He could feel all of himself, the fabric of his breeches stretched over his thighs, the slight cold of the buttons on his shirt cuffs as they brushed his wrists, a stray curl of golden hair touching his cheek. His hands were clasped beneath his chin, which was tilted up, as his gaze remained on the boy's face.  
  
They almost looked alike: the same golden hair, blue eyes, the same defiant air. But no. The other's hair wasn't really the same as Girald's, for it was less curls and more straight. It was lacklustre where Girald's was bright. The other's eyes were darker, sadder, hopeless more. And he was too thin. Wrapped in a too-thin coat, holding it about himself tightly, shaking rather, the bones in his hands and fingers were too clear. Still beautiful, though. He was still the most beautiful man Girald had ever seen.  
  
He knelt beside Girald, taking his hand. Their fingers interlaced mechanically, as their lips met briefly.  
  
"Je m'appelle Michel."  
  
"Girald."  
  
Michel sat back, pulling his hand away. "You don't really look so much like me."  
  
"No..."  
  
"Not my reflection."  
  
"No."  
  
"So I'm dreaming."  
  
"No."  
  
Michel's eyes flashed suddenly, dangerously, and he tensed, going rigid. "Yes, I am. I never have anything real. You're not real. Why should you be? You're what I could have been. You're the one who was never hurt, the one who doesn't hear voices in his dreams. You're the innocent one, the free one."  
  
Girald reached out to touch his cheek gently. "No, I don't belong to you. You don't understand. You're *my* dream. Oh, but you're beautiful."  
  
"Yes, I'm fine, aren't I? Very beautiful." His voice was bitter, and hurt Girald's ears. "I'm dead, that's what I am. Grantaire's always telling me so, and it's true."  
  
"Grantaire?"  
  
"Yes, Grantaire. The bastard. He won't leave me be. He knows I'm dead. Everyone else is blind to it; Phillipe's blind, but *he* can see. But damn him, I'll keep my coat and be buried in it, though it's not enough to force out the cold."  
  
Girald bit his lip. "I'll make him leave you alone."  
  
"Oh, come now. How? It's impossible. It won't happen. Forget about it. --You're lovely. I must've looked like you once. A long while ago."  
  
"Je suis desole."  
  
"Stop being sorry all over the place."  
  
"Je suis -" he stopped himself.  
  
"It's warm here."  
  
"Yes..."  
  
Michel looked him straight on then, fixing him with dark, lonely, misery-filled eyes. "May I stay here?" Still the tone was rough, embittered, belying those eyes.  
  
"If... if you'd like."  
  
"Merci. You're a god." He stood, ignoring the soft crack of his knees, and sat on the bed. "Dreams are such peculiar things."  
  
Girald nodded silently.  
  
"Ah well. Bonne nuit." He lay down abruptly, pulling the coat closer about himself, and closed his eyes. Girald dragged himself to his feet, feeling rather light-headed, and brushed back Michel's hair. He smiled faintly, and whispered:  
  
"Bonne nuit."  
  
A strange image was dancing before his eyes. Michel was draped over a barricade, the way it looked in his mind, a trail of blood ebbing from between his barely parted lips. It was impossible to tell where the wound that had caused the blood was, for there was no other trace of injury.  
  
It was the image he saw whenever he looked in the mirror. 


	7. Imaginings

Girald sat upon his bed with his back once again to the wall, smiling dreamily, and perhaps foolishly, though it was difficult for one of his beauty to look foolish, at the opposite wall. He was hugging his knees lightly, and his hair was unbound, streaming down, and almost girlishly long. He wore a shirt that was obviously too large, and it slid off his shoulders. The sleeves were pushed up so that his hands could find their way out, and he hadn't bothered to button the cuffs, as it would have served no purpose.  
  
When Jehan entered, Girald gave no sign of having noticed, other than to avert his gaze to the window. But in a moment, he spoke, softly. His voice was rather rough from the disuse of even an hour, and he had to clear his throat and speak again, for the words had been strangled.  
  
"Do we know any man named Michel?"  
  
Jehan blinked, pausing. "I... yes, I believe so. Several of the workingmen who joined recently. Michel is a very common name, of course."  
  
"With hair like mine, yet. Gold-coloured."  
  
"I don't think so, no."  
  
"Oh... Then I must truly have dreamed..."   
  
He sighed, and concentrated upon the feel of the wall at his back. He kept his bed pressed into the corner for a reason: because he couldn't bear to be vulnerable on four sides. Against the wall, he was protected on two, and the others he could at least always watch. The head of the bed would be shielded, and nothing could ever come up behind him. It felt safe, and he needed that.  
  
"Did you meet someone named Michel?"  
  
"Rather. But I must've dreamed him. He looked like me."  
  
"He couldn't've. No one could ever look like you. You're different from everyone." Jehan was looking at him fondly.  
  
Girald laughed quietly, in a sort of innocent surprise. "He did, though. Truly, I swear it. --But then, he was a dream. So it's nothing anyway."  
  
"I suppose. Have you eaten? It's midday."  
  
"Not yet. I've been thinking."  
  
Of Michel. Girald had slept on the floor that night, and when he awoke, the beautiful young man had been gone from his bed. He was thus almost certain that it was only a dream, yet the blankets had been warm, and the memory vivid. He'd felt a soft tugging in his chest, a half-ache, gentle enough to be ignored. But he hadn't. Michel had been so lovely, so real. The way his skin felt when Girald touched his forehead was real. The slight roughness of his lips was real.  
  
"Then you must take lunch with me."  
  
"All right..."  
  
He stood, brushing off the shirt, and seeming to notice for the first time how long it was.  
  
"I should change clothes."  
  
Jehan blushed slightly. "I'll be outside."  
  
"Mmm."  
  
Girald took a handful of the material, and rubbed it against his cheek. Michel died the same way he did... though they weren't the same. He sighed again. There were so many people he must see once more before the revolution - the young girl who'd given him the lily; the old man with the book - Michel was just another of them.  
  
He put on a new shirt and joined Jehan. 


	8. Snowflakes Beyond the Moon

[Part One]  
  
Girald stood before the mirror of his room, perfectly still, as he had at the bridge the night he'd met the girl Cosette. He was ramrod straight, and both hands were knotted in the fabric of his shirt over his heart, clenched so that the knuckles were white. His eyes were fixed upon his reflection, upon the face that looked back calmly as though nothing in the world were wrong. His skin was always pale, and no one would ever know he was white from shock. His hair always dripped from the tieback, framing his face in curls. Only his eyes were different now. They had gone dark as night with only stars pricking the heaviness. They held wildness, a trapped look, twisting into some emotion between lost and afraid and horror-struck and lonely and angry all at once.  
  
He put out his left hand suddenly, to stroke his reflection's cheekbone, and the slight movement shifted the mirror. It slid, without warning, from the wall, and fell almost slowly to the floor. He fell with it, allowing his body to collapse, on his knees at the moment it smashed. Slivers flew out to all sides in a spray of glass that looked like droplets of water. He shut his eyes the moment after, from reflex, without thinking of the action, and felt the ripple of hurt within seconds.  
  
He remained like this for what felt like dizzy, spinning, throbbing hours of nothingness. At last he gained the courage to look, and lifted his hands close to his face. They were sprinkled with tiny points of blood, and he understood that his face must look like this too. He understood then that he must stand, wash away the crimson, clear away the glass. But he didn't want to. The last thing in the world he wanted was to move, or make any sign to show himself that he was alive.  
  
"Jehan..."  
  
It was spoken with a soft strain, a note of pleading. It was the begging of a young child for his mother, with an unsaid "Where are you?" after it. It sounded strange to his voice, a word he would not have uttered in that way ever.  
  
And then his fear and shock dissolved into tears, arms around himself, head bowed. The tears made long silver tracks down his cheeks, mingling a little with the blood, and wandered their way to his lips, where he tasted them without realising that he was.  
  
He would have cried forever, were it not for the sudden sharp pain in his eyes. He startled slightly, and quickly wiped his hand across his face, although it only hurt more. He forced himself to stand, and stumbled to his bedside, taking water from the washbasin in his cupped palms, and clearing away the blood. He sat upon the bed and blinked rapidly; trying desperately to remove the glass in his eyes that even the tears couldn't wash away. Finally, he gave up, too weary to try any longer, aching. He lay down, pretending that Jehan slept beside him, and fell asleep.  
  
~*~*~  
  
He walked slowly through a world of snow, barefoot, shirtless, yet he was not cold. A soft wind blew his hair about his face, and the gold interwove itself with the white snowflakes settling in it. There were a few trees, all coated with white, as there were a few hills, and a mountain very far off. There were no houses, no place for any other creature to live, and the sky was a colour of washed-out grey he'd never seen in a sky before.  
  
Not quite on purpose, he took a deep breath of the cool, alive air, and found himself more awake, more alert. He looked around himself, feeling surprised and delighted, turning about quickly as though it weren't quick enough, trying to see everything that one could see in this silent white land.  
  
Daringly, he parted his lips and sang a single note.  
  
The snow world echoed it back, letting it tremble, hanging it on the trees and gilding the snowflakes with it. He felt a surge of wonder, and put out his hands for it, hoping to hold it. It melted through his fingers, but he found he didn't quite mind, watching it drip golden to the ground beneath his feet.  
  
In childish awe, he giggled, and turned his face up to the sky, eyes closed, standing on his toes, the rest of his feet off what felt like snow-covered grass, to lift him closer to the source of the beauty. With his body so white, he looked like a statue of alabaster, save for his hair, too rich and deep a colour to be anything but gold leaf coating on the stone...  
  
He returned to the earth with reluctance, shaking his head to throw off the flakes, beginning to wander again, to see what new beauties the world could hold.  
  
~*~*~  
  
When he awoke, Michel was kneeling by the remains of the mirror, his back to Girald. He had scraped all the pieces into one large mound of glass, and had a handful, watching it sift between his fingers like sand.  
  
"You quite destroyed this, didn't you? Whyever?"  
  
"Jehan's dead..." The words sounded just as twisted and incorrect as they had when they were first spoken to him. "There was an accident... with a fiacre..."  
  
"Jehan Prouvaire?"  
  
Girald frowned. "Did you know him?"  
  
"Of course I know him. He's one of Les Amis."  
  
"Oui... he was the best man there."  
  
Michel looked at him levelly. "Combeferre was far more into the habit of keeping himself applied to tasks at hand. Jehan dreamed too much." But he did sigh. "Poor Prouvaire. The silly child."  
  
Girald climbed out of bed, feeling stiff, and old. "He wasn't. He was a wonderful, brave man. He was... so much..." He trembled.  
  
Michel stood, and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry." Though the words were short, with difficult sympathy. "If you'd like" - he paused thoughtfully - "I could take you back with me. To see him again."  
  
Girald felt his eyes widen. "I could?"  
  
"Of course." Michel smirked. "It's only another plane of reality."  
  
"Another dream..."  
  
"Just that." Michel took his hand. "Come with me."  
  
"Oui, lord Apollo..."  
  
"We needn't call me that, for all I look like him. One Grantaire is quite enough."  
  
[Part Two]  
  
Jehan sat quietly in the cafe, looking down at the tabletop. His grey-brown hair was undone, and fell neatly to his shoulders, and his eyes were clouded. He wore a bandage along one arm, wrapped the full length up, and kept that arm flat along the table, fingers settled lifelessly on the wood. His other hand lay in his lap, and his ankles were crossed, and only the toes of his shoes touched the floor. He was motionless, as though sitting for a painting; indeed, posed almost as if he wanted someone to capture him on canvas forever.  
  
But the only person who looked twice at him was Andre, and the corners of his mouth twisted up into a sarcastic smile as he fell into a chair beside Jehan.  
  
"Bonjour, poet-boy. Wherefore art thou sad?"  
  
Jehan turned his gaze up at him in place of the table, purple-blue eyes desperate. "Girald - Enjolras - he is gone."  
  
Genuinely surprised, Andre stared. "I hadn't expected that, to be sure. Gone? How do you mean gone?"  
  
"When I came home from the hospital, he wasn't there. I waited a full day and night."  
  
He understood what those words meant in a way that Jehan hadn't meant them. Girald was gone, yes. But more. Home for the poet was somewhere Enjolras was. He had perhaps suspected this before, and yet... Suddenly, unreasonably, he was shattered, rather as the glass Girald had broken, and angry too, though not so much. Jehan didn't really deserve someone as beautiful and untouchable as the godlike young man, though he wasn't worthy either. He shivered, and quickly asked:  
  
"You were at the hospital?"  
  
"I was in a carriage accident. It... I passed out, and was taken there. I'd only been bruised a little, though, and there was no real injury. That's not the point. Girald is gone. I don't know what I'm to do, Grantaire. I don't know if he's hurt, or if he's gone somewhere, for a - a visit or something, or if he's - I don't know anything!"  
  
Andre propped his chin in his hands, eyeing Jehan. He didn't want to help the boy, but still, he felt a loss at the knowledge that Enjolras was gone. His devotion, he felt, made Girald half his.  
  
"He left nothing?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Took anything with him?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well, then I don't see what you've to go on. He's probably in a whole 'nother dimension of time and space. For all we know."  
  
"Grantaire, please, *please*, be serious and help me."  
  
"I am serious! For all we know, he thinks you're dead."  
  
"But why...?"  
  
"You know, you're amazingly dull sometimes."  
  
"Grantaire! I don't want to be insulted, I just want to find him!" Jehan was nearing tears, leaning forward across the table to plead with him, his clenched fist trembling just above the surface as though he meant to slam it down but hadn't the courage. Andre relented.  
  
"I mean to say, little boy, that you were in an accident, and he might have been told you died. If you truly *fainted*," he fluttered his eyelashes and simpered ridiculously at the word, "then to a spectator, it must have looked rather as though you simply keeled over."  
  
"But if he was told I died, what would he have done? He's not sort who'd kill himself. He has so many beautiful dreams, and he wouldn't leave them for me." Jehan no longer seemed to care if he told Andre that he and Enjolras were lovers, and Andre found himself less worried about that, now that the first hurt was done, than he was amused by the words "beautiful dreams". He himself knew better than Jehan Girald's beautiful dreams.  
  
"We must think of the grieving angel, poet, for that is he. No, you're right, he wouldn't kill himself. Not our Enjolras. Have you ever lost something dear to you?"  
  
"No... I had a kitten, when I was small, and she died, and I remember that I cried for weeks, but... Nothing but that, yet."  
  
"O carefree life! That's why you're a poet. Poets are men who always write about sorrow having never experienced it, so that women of the bourgeoisie can read their scribblings and say, "Yes, this is despair, this is mourning. This is aching. How beautiful it is!" Men who know loss have the sense to not write on it, as it's too stupid and painful a thing to interest anyone."  
  
Jehan rested his head in his arms. "I write about love, Grantaire," he mumbled wearily, the words muffled in his sleeves. "I do know about that."  
  
Andre plunged steadily on, disregarding this. "But loss. Men live it all differently. Me, if I was hurt, should drink absinthe until I was drowning in green fog. I should find myself wrapped in dreams of what I'd lost. Have you ever stood perfectly still in the dark with your eyes open, and felt the world shifting around you? Put out your hands and it looks as though there's some outline of something blacker before you, and you tried to touch it, but you'd made it up? Have you ever felt the pieces of different airs and lifetimes crowding together and running over one another and streaking together, like blood and water and wine? That's your second dimension. That's where you're not quite in this world and not quite in the other. Put your foot down and you'd step into the other. One can easily walk between times. It's not magic, no witchcraft; it's your *mind*, Prouvaire, it's all your head. But you're really there. Maybe when you were but a little wee child, and you lost that kitten of yours, you cried ever so, and in the night, you'd picture yourself in a place where you could play with the wretched thing anyhow. And if you thought about it desperately hard, you'd be really there, and feel it warm in your hands and so on. When you grow older, that's all childish fancy, of course, and none of it's real. It is real. You learn that when you're often drunk, for drunkenness rids you of the despicable part of your brain that insists it's unreal. When you're drunk, you can do anything. Ant then it's all very simple to live in a world you'd normally call make-believe. And sometimes, boy, you can lose yourself in order to find a world where your lover still exists, in another level of the parallel universes, where accidents happen, but not to you. Where you only dreamed that he died. And - "  
  
"Oh, God, Grantaire, stop it!"  
  
Andre laughed and settled back in his chair. "Pardon, of course. I ramble. Proves I need more wine. Haven't had my daily ration, or some such. --God, boy, you look pale. You all right?"  
  
"You've frightened me."  
  
"Only speaking the truth."  
  
"I--"  
  
"--Don't want to hear the truth? Pardon, again."  
  
"It's the truth? I'm a poet, Grantaire, and that's nothing. I know how to dream, and say things I feel with beautiful words that will always be regarded as just beautiful words, and not the things I feel. I am supposed always to believe in some muse, but I don't know if you're that muse."  
  
"Hell, I'm no one's muse. I'm just some drunk. I read between the lines because I can't focus on them. If you want me to take you to where you imagine your Enjolras to be, I can do that. You needn't if there's a decent, sensible, unskewed explanation to all this."  
  
"Please help me."  
  
"Very well, then. We must needs procure some absinthe. Chowder!"  
  
[Part Three]  
  
Girald stood alone in a corner of the back room of le cafe Musain, watching those of Les Amis who had come. He leaned against the wall, his hair tangled and falling over his eyes wispily, as well as trailing down along his neck and over his shoulders. His blue eyes were fixed upon the figure of Jehan Prouvaire, laughing softly and talking with Joly, pausing every moment or so to write down something on the parchment before him. His hands were ink stained, in black, and green and red as well, as though he had written with calligraphy inks. They were beautiful hands, Girald thought. The fingers were long and curled around the stem of the quill, calloused from so much writing, and the palm was pale with clear lines. The wrists of his hands were slender, elegant in the way they were held poised above the paper.  
  
This Prouvaire, when Girald looked upon him, wouldn't die in the same lovely manner as his Jehan. There was only blood around his pale throat, in a necklace of crimson. He supposed it meant the poet was dead, but the image kept sliding. It refused to stay fixed on Jehan with blood, and continued to turn back into Jehan smiling at Joly.  
  
He looked away in frustration, and met Michel's eyes.  
  
["He won't see you at all. You'll only just look on him. But he'll be alive, and I imagine that's what you want."]  
  
He turned, and silently left, and not one man turned at the door as he opened it and slipped through it.  
  
Jehan shouldn't have died yet. He was meant to die on the barricades. He was meant to die as Girald had always pictured he would, with his flag of dark scarlet and his single bullet wound. It wasn't fair that he should have died now, when his death would mean nothing, and he would be remembered for nothing. He should have been honoured for dying, and now he would never be.  
  
Michel's Jehan wasn't the same. Michel's Jehan wasn't his. It was all terribly different, and no one could ever equal him in any way. Even this Jehan's hands weren't as perfect as his.  
  
Girald trembled in longing, and closed his eyes, allowing the things of this world to go past him and around him. Suddenly, he felt a touch on his shoulder. His eyes flew open as he spun around, and his mind was just as suddenly filled with a glorious, overwhelming image. He had it back. He had back his poet, in all the beauty of that single shot in the heart.  
  
"J-Jehan?"  
  
It flickered.  
  
In a moment, he could see nothing.  
  
[Part Four]  
  
Jehan gently touched Girald's shoulder, and felt him turn rapidly beneath his fingertips. Girald's eyes went wide, bluer than he remembered, brimming with joyous surprise.  
  
"J-Jehan?"  
  
And then in an instant, that was all gone, and they were blank, faded blue.  
  
He frowned in confusion, and let his fingers trail over Girald's cheek.  
  
"Are you all right? Girald?"  
  
"Jehan, my eyes hurt... there's glass in them... I dropped a mirror, and it broke... in a thousand pieces..." His voice was quivering, unsure, childish. Jehan shivered, feeling an unnaturalness in it.  
  
"Sh, it's all right. I've come to bring you home. This isn't the place to be."  
  
"But I can't see... I can't follow anyone if I can't see," he whimpered softly, showing fear that made Jehan feel ill. This wasn't right for him. It wasn't right for Enjolras, his Enjolras, the leader of Les Amis and the man who would free France, to be afraid like this. He felt tears springing to his eyes once more, and brushed them away on the back of his hand.  
  
"Hush. It doesn't matter. You shall see." He brushed away more tears on his fingers, and pressed them lightly to Girald's eyes.  
  
"Your hands --" Girald caught them, holding them to his chest, and of a sudden, his own tears began. They dripped down his face, and Jehan tried to kiss them away. "The glass..."  
  
"Wash it away," advised a rough voice behind him. "It'll come out if you cry hard enough."  
  
"Grantaire?" He tried to turn, and as he did, he felt a soft pricking at his eyes that trailed down his cheeks with the salt water.  
  
"Ah, now, there you should be able to see again. It's out."  
  
"Why are you here?" A wave of anger passed over him, that Grantaire should have seen his tears.  
  
"To make a nuisance of myself. Come, Prouvaire, it is time we were gone, to quote the man Shakespeare."  
  
"Grantaire, hush." Jehan brushed the glass from Girald's face and flicked it at Andre. "We shall come."  
  
"Of course." Andre thrust his hands in his pockets and began strolling along, ahead of them, casting an occasional look over his shoulder.  
  
"So, I've lost again. And Prouvaire, I've told you how I remedy this. Absinthe, and a good long time inside my head with my mad green faeries. What a life. That's how we live." He smirked. "I expect this means that the comedy has ended." 


	9. Fears

Girald sat listlessly at a table in Musain. It was a table chosen, it seemed, completely at random, one of the older tables - the wood was warped in places, and the legs didn't quite all match. It fit his discomfort, and that was why he had taken it. The chair he graced was hard, and his back hurt, but he proudly refused to move, and instead looked resentfully at his hands.  
  
His hair was tied back far less casually than usual, the leather strips holding it from his face with the intent to be intimidating. It had been brushed carefully and arranged in such a way that it threw his cheekbones into accent, and his eyes looked almost Asian. His cravat was done tightly, he hadn't taken off his coat, and his arms were folded, though this was apparently only for the purpose of spoiling his effect by knotting his hands nervously in the material of the sleeves.  
  
He surveyed the cafe anxiously, resisting a strong urge to escape. This urge was rather painfully biting inside his chest, and he would gladly have obeyed it.  
  
//But I promised Jehan... I promised.//  
  
He brushed his forefinger along his cheek, and stared mournfully at the tabletop, before turning his gaze back to the door. All the waiting was what was worst. This would likely be over quickly - if he had any say in it, it would - and then he could leave. Or anything. But having to wait was awful. His pride rebelled against what he would do, fighting and insisting that he should be at home; wasn't schoolwork, or one of his speeches for Saturday, more important than this? Of course it was, anything was more important than this, but he'd promised he would, and thus, integrity won out over pride.  
  
He eyed the waitress, and momentarily thought he might order a glass of wine, just to cause a slight stir and distract his attention, then considered the reputation he'd built. He was intended to be resolute, strong, pure. That was his image. It wouldn't do to smash it just because he wanted to do something differently. There was the trouble. Always wanting to stand out. Couldn't have that, causing everyone to look at him by "losing his morals". That'd be no good.  
  
Not to say he wasn't being looked at now. When an angel sits among mortals, of course they look. They're attracted to sparkling things that catch sunlight. They're like magpies. And one must be careful, or they'll try to capture the lovely thing they've spotted. There're so many people to be careful around. Edge past whores, pretend grisettes don't exist, watch yourself around the ones you know are thieves, be sure to only give so much to beggars and make sure they're not just going to spend it on liquor. Wish good day to the policemen, and give them that innocent, beautiful smile, and pray they won't question you or check the papers you're carrying. Make them think college boys are all silly youth, never insurrectionists. Help the women when they need it, offer a hand when they climb into their fiacres, give them directions to such and such a place, and for God's sake never let them begin to think about wanting you. Be polite but be *cold*, or you never know what could happen. Wouldn't that be lovely, now, if some girl began flirting with you? God, no. Mustn't let them do that. Keep the smile from them. And it's always careful. You have to be careful around everyone, really; there's not a person in the world you could be on ease with.  
  
Saving Jehan. Jehan's all right. You can trust him. You can love him.  
  
Girald's eyes shot to the door as it opened. No, not the man, just someone else you don't know. You really don't know anyone. Though that's more because no one knows you.  
  
There's the door again. Dear God, it's him.  
  
He stood, unfolding, letting the coat smooth itself out, and walked with halting steps to Andre, tilting his face rather defiantly without realising he was.  
  
Andre looked up at him, eyebrows raised, half-smirking, but for all that, ready to take whatever Girald said with utmost seriousness. He tucked his hands behind his back and nodded solemnly.  
  
"Bad day to you too, m'sieur. I remember that you do not like hearing 'Bonjour'."  
  
A look of surprise crossed the golden-haired young man's face. "--Oh! Yes... I did say that..." The intimidating air he'd worked so hard on died, disarmed and easily slaughtered by Andre's greeting.  
  
"Yes, you did. Hmm. May I join your revolution yet? Is that why you've sought me out? Actually, if you've sought me out, it must be something far more important than that. You've not decided to renounce Prouvaire and declare your undying love to me, have you? I hope not."  
  
Girald blushed, feeling a slight soft anger warm his body. "No. Jehan and I are -" he stumbled rather over the words "- very happy. I've come to thank you. Jehan told me that you were the one who discovered where I'd gone when I... visited Michel."   
  
There. That went all right. It was easy to say, just as he'd thought. It sounded all right, and that pause before 'visited' was hardly noticeable. What could be said, though? What on earth would it be called, going to Michel's... world? Place? Time? Parallel universe? There're no words, really. Oh, damn, missed what he said.  
  
"--But at any rate, that was nothing. A child's talent, truly. And anything to be of service to you, you know."  
  
"Oh... thank you..."  
  
Andre smiled brightly. "That's nothing, either."  
  
"Ah..." Girald turned to the door, feeling relief. It's over. What was promised to Jehan is done. Go home, now. Get away.  
  
"Ah yes." Andre touched his shoulder, for perhaps a second too long. "Easter is steadily approaching. Seeing as you've a sacrifice to make, I wondered if that was when you'd planned it."  
  
"No. It'll be later than that."  
  
"All right. That's more time to spend coming up with a good argument why I should be part of it."  
  
Andre's saying that didn't bother Girald as much as it used to. It was something he'd grown accustomed to. Something he'd always be asked. He smiled.  
  
"Au revoir, Grantaire."  
  
"Hm? Oh, right, au revoir." 


	10. Angels

Girald stood leaning against a wall. He knew that it was undignified to sleep in such a way, and he would have worried. But he also knew that his beauty made up for the dignity he lacked, and it would appear lovely. He gave a gentle sigh, barely perceptible, and settled back. His golden hair was tousled roughly, but against the white wall, it still looked angelic. Indeed, now, anything that happened would only enhance whatever beauty he possessed.  
  
His face was a strange thing, now. His sleep was not peaceful, nor troubled. He bore an expression of serene satisfaction, rather, and it pleased him. His arms were down along his sides, and each perfect, slender finger was half-curled. His eyes were closed, and dark lashes showed clearly on pale skin. His head was tilted, and it put a strain on his neck. It would have been taunt to touch, but accented in that. He knew no one would have ever dared to touch him now, anyway. The sleeve of his shirt slid off one shoulder, exposing more pale, soft skin, almost the colour of marble. The white linen draped over his body, hanging in folds down his chest. He wore a vest of red cloth, dark red, to match the French flag, and to match blood.  
  
There was red ink smeared on the shirt, and a little in his hair, gilding his curls. There was even a touch of it along one cheekbone, throwing it into sharp relief. He wasn't sure how it had gotten there, but in a way, it did make him seem even more imposing than usual. It, like the vest, was blood-red, and he very much liked the effect of it. His feet were bootless, and the bones in his ankles stood out, individually, each looking easily breakable.  
  
He rather wished Jehan could see him now. He was certain the poet would be impressed. Perhaps he'd write something about this. Jehan was gone now, of course. He had gone out. Girald was alone. But only for the moment.  
  
He opened his eyes, looking out the window. The panes were crazed glass, and he never noticed before. Perhaps, though, perhaps they were cracked. Perhaps they had smashed within themselves. Perhaps anything. Had he really looked about himself and tried to see the world before?  
  
He felt peculiar warmth at his bare feet, and shifted his gaze downwards. Oh. Of course. Andre was dead. He smiled fondly at the still form, and considered bending to lay a hand upon its shoulder, then changed his mind. That blood was strange to see. He'd never imagined Andre would ever die with blood on his body. And yet... he had. He'd likely been very happy about it. The last thing Girald remembered about him had been that they held their hands together, and he looked in the other man's eyes for the first time. They were sad eyes. They were lonely, and bitter, and sad. Then there was gunfire, and Andre fell at his feet. Death became the man. His cheeks beneath black stubble were white, as Girald's shirt. White as the snow Girald once dreamed about. White as Cosette's dress.  
  
He was proud of Andre now.  
  
He thought back to when they'd first built the altar, towering, made of tables, and chairs; made of paving stones that Bahorel had torn up, laughing while he did so, flushed and excited. Girald had taken off his boots, deciding that he could move about easier if he could gain traction on the dirt under the cobblestones.  
  
He remembered perfectly when each of his chosen seven had been sacrificed. He remembered Bahorel's death, the first, not at all like he'd imagined it, but still rough enough to fit the fiery man, and smooth enough to be a proper sacrifice. Though he wasn't sure, he thought that Bahorel had lain a long while in his blood before he died, and all the while, had spoken softly to himself.  
  
He remembered Feuilly's more elegant dying, a gunshot in the throat, and watching Damien slowly tumble down, body twisting over each obstacle it encountered, and hearing, very faintly and brokenly, "Allons enfin de la Patria..." Damien had had *such* a lovely voice.  
  
Combeferre had taken three bayonet stabs in the chest, and sank to the ground, looking at the sky momentarily, then falling limp. His death was not heroically treated, as others had been, and Girald had seen a National Guardsman step on Phillipe as he entered the cafe. He'd felt a surge of anger at this disrespect to Combeferre's ending, and he shot the Guardsman.  
  
Courfeyrac had been like Bahorel, laughing all the time that they fought. His pale brown hair was whipped about constantly by the wind, and he wouldn't stop making jests to anyone who would listen to him. He made the entire thing to be like a game, and once gave Girald a smile of complete childish innocence. He was spattered with grapeshot, and looked once down at the holes, mouth open. "That's undignified. I'd thought to be... shot once at close range... and kill the other fellow..." He laughed helplessly, and collapsed.  
  
Joly had died with Bossuet. Girald never saw them die, and didn't know any of what had passed with them, but he found them a little after Feuilly's death. Bossuet had his arms around Joly, and the blonde boy had a trail of blood between his lips, and a bullet hole in his chest. Bossuet was shot in the back.  
  
["But he must have been protecting Joly... That silly boy. Blonde hair suited him. He was afraid of dying all the time... perhaps he should not have been among us."]  
  
Did Jehan say that? He must have. Girald didn't speak to anyone but Jehan during all that time. The poet was the only person he'd needed to speak to. They had lived it differently from the other men. It had been almost a dance, and every now and then they crossed each other's dance path, clasping hands, smiling briefly, letting words ebb gently past one another, and moving on.  
  
Jehan was shot apart from everyone else.  
  
He was captured, somehow; Girald never knew. Now that he allowed his memory to trace it, he realised that he'd thought he'd seen everything that went on during their great sacrifice. But that was thought. It reality, he'd missed much. Many words had been spoken that he'd not heard; many farewells said; many dreams had flickered, leapt up, died down. Many men that he'd thought he knew were different. Those he'd thought good but shallow, like Courfeyrac, had proven apart from his assumptions. He might have laughed at himself for his foolishness in not learning more about his disciples, but his throat was strangely sore.  
  
Yet Jehan. The last time he'd seen Jehan, the poet had a large square of crimson silk tied in one buttonhole, and his hair was coming down. The silk was brighter than Jehan must've liked, since his quiet lover wore only pale, faded colours that didn't match. The crimson was so unusual to see that Girald was sure for a moment that he was looking instead at Feuilly. The fan-maker and Jehan had the same slight, delicate build, and Damien would be far likelier to wear vibrant twists of cloth. But it was Jehan. Jehan fulfilling what Girald had always imagined.  
  
//"Ready, aim --"  
  
"Vive la futur! Vive la France!"  
  
"Fire!"  
  
Then gunshots. Then silence.//  
  
If he found the poet's body, he was certain beyond a doubt that the crimson silk would have been wrapped around it as much as it could, and there would only be one bullet hole. The others would have missed. And that single wound would be in the exact centre of Jehan's heart.  
  
Things had gone as they were intended to.  
  
And Girald...  
  
He was not dead, but sleeping.  
  
The Guardsmen would be coming to collect the corpses of the insurgents soon, and he needed to complete the sacrifice. Then it would be perfect. Everyone would see how one old man's foolish, insane dream had brought about the deaths of all these young men. It would be resolved. He'd have revenged on his father.  
  
He pushed away from the wall, walking delicately to the kitchen area of le Musain. After a few moments searching, he left the room with a long-handled knife.  
  
His steps were careful, and small, and slow, and he walked that way on purpose. Anyone watching must see how reserved he was.   
  
Of course he had not died before now. When the two of them were shot at by the Guardsmen, perhaps Andre had stood in the way of the bullets. Perhaps they had just not hit, not daring to touch Girald's beauty. Perhaps, with red ink down his shirt, he had looked already as though he would die. Somehow, he had lived. He didn't need an explanation. He knew why.  
  
He climbed to the top of the barricade, his altar, and stood for a while looking over everything. Then he closed his eyes, and brought the knife to his slim, pale neck. This was how lambs were slaughtered. This was the proper way to end the great sacrifice he'd prepared and carried out.  
  
He drew the blade across his throat.  
  
~~~  
  
The beautiful young man on the barricade stood for eternity as the dark blood rushed from him, cascading down, waterfalling down. At last he fell. He fell as beautifully as he was, draping himself over a ready chair. The sun at this time was sinking, and a shadowed, golden light streaked over him, creeping under the ruffled curls of his hair and under his lashes, between his red-soaked fingers and in the folds on his shirt, pooling in his parted lips and shining on the knife that had dropped from his hand and fallen. Lifeless, he was even lovelier than he had been while he lived, the blood adding colour to his cheek that was not there before.  
  
The angel had finished his task. 


End file.
